In Pursuit Of An Optimum Optical Imaging Technology For Early Detection Of Dental Caries

Abstract

In the last two decades, majority of the newly developed dental caries detection techniques have been opticsbased, relying either on enhancement of light scattering in early carious lesion (e.g. optical coherent tomography or OCT) or enhancement of light absorption in early caries (e.g. thermophotonic lock-in imaging or TPLI). This paper aims to explore the detection threshold capabilities between light scattering and light absorption based dental caries detection methods. With this intention, the experiments will be conducted through examination of controlled artificiallyinduced early caries. It is anticipated that the molecularcontrast TPLI imaging technology outperforms OCT due to the more specific nature of light absorption contrast mechanism.